[pct-l] storing food?

[Trevor McKee]

if anyone is on the fence about using a bear canister for food storage in sensitive areas just go to "the bear talk" at kickoff. 

last year they had a yosemite ranger showing pictures of long-term damage to habituated bears. "long term" as in the one's who are not shot or "destroyed" after coming back for more.

the talk was somewhat depressing but really well done and educational. check it out this year if you can.

-mayor trevor

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jan 28, 2014, at 12:49 PM, "belcherjd at juno.com" <belcherjd at juno.com> wrote:
> 
> It is again interesting how different people have had totally different experiences while hiking. My experiences come from 55 years of hiking on the PCT (yes, before it was the PCT) in Washington.
> 
> As teenager I learned it was not very wise to keep my food in my tent because the rodents will gnaw holes in the tent to get to the food. My presence made no difference to them at all. Bears were no problem, they avoid humans when ever possible and to see one was a wonderful experience. It was odd to see bears in Yellowstone not avoiding people.
> 
> I learn very quickly to hang my food to keep the critters out of my snickers and jerky.
> (Back then there was no such thing as a bear canister.) As the years went by I would keep my trail mix with me in the tent to satisfy my mid night hunger.... no problem it was in a hard plastic jar of some sort. But, then I needed to lighten my pack (age catching up) and so the mix went into plastic bags......bang-go holes in the tent and mice playing keep away with my food and running over my face.....never did manage to smear one against the inside of the tent with my boot (maybe a good thing).
> 
> One of the problems with hanging my food was that rain would get to it .... yuk.
> Then along came the bear canisters but the expense was unrealistic. Finally my wife gave me one (a Bearikade) for Father's Day and for the last 10+ years it went with me on all trips, required or not. Oh how nice to have a waterproof container for my food and the mice were foiled. Add to that I had a great stool to sit on.
> 
> Two years ago I talked at length with a well known Thru-hiker about how he kept the rodents out of his food and food storage. His thoughts/findings were that the real bad rodent problem was a unique phenomena to Central Washington  area.... of course this has been where most of my hiking has been.... and that I,comparatively, would find very little problem on the rest of the PCT.
> Now comes last year and my thru-hike attempt. I discovered that he was right, in SoCal the little critters did not bother my food bag no matter what I did with it.....what a joy!
> 
> YMMD
> 'til later
> Jon (Gandalf)
> 
> ---------- Original Message ----------
> 
> 
> On Jan 26, 2014 5:34 PM, "Jake Handy" <jakers329 at yahoo.com> wrote:> Im attempting my first thru-hike of the PCT this year and I'm a little> confused.? I'll admit this may seem like a silly question, but where do> people store their food at night?? I've read the popular guidebooks (ie.> Yogi's, Jardine, etc) and while they make vague references to bear-proofing> ones food by hanging it they don't go into much detail.? I'm assuming> hikers are just keeping their food with/near them in their tent/shelter..?> And if so, is the case the same for food in a bear-cannister in the> Sierra's?? I'm assuming that this is the method and that the authors of> these books just don't want to specifically recommend doing that.? Any help> would be appreciated!> Thanks!> Jake
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